


Not the Same

by herequeerandreadytofight



Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Angst, M/M, Sad bois, Sex, like they meet in a hospital
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-05-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 12:09:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14592726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herequeerandreadytofight/pseuds/herequeerandreadytofight
Summary: Tommy and Alfie meet in a hospital in France, in the middle of the War





	Not the Same

He like to say he noticed him right away, that the light softened and the moaning from the amputees stopped and he collapsed into his arms with the surety of soulmates. In reality, his body was too racked with a week straight of coughing to notice anything other than hospital crisp sheets and the cool water left on his bedside for almost two days. It was only when he managed to suck in a huge rattling breath that a massive tattooed hand swiped back the privacy curtain around his bed. 

“Hullo Shelby Comma Thomas. Are you finally conscious enough to talk?” 

He blinked, slow. “Talk about what?” 

The stranger, who if the stubble was anything to go by had been in the hospital for some time, shrugged. “Fuck if I know, but the man on my other side has shell shock and won’t do anything besides cry. I’ve been here a week and I finished my book two days ago..” It took Tommy a moment to connect the wheezing he heard with him, and another to realize he was laughing. Before much else could happen, a nurse with enormous circles under her eyes appeared. 

“Alright, Mr. Solomons. How’s the leg?” 

“Hurts like hell, but how are you, Rosie?” 

She sighed and collapsed at the end of his bed and reached into her apron to produce two cigarettes and a lighter. 

“Another shit day in Hell. Four amputations and some poor sod has diphtheria. It’s not even lunch time.” She spoke around the cigarette in her mouth which Mr. Solomons leaned up to light. 

“I told you not to do that, you’ll burst your stitches.” 

He grinned. “My mother always told me a lady should never have to light her own cigarette.” 

“Yeah? Well, I don’t think a lady should have to clean up gallons of sick but here we are.” 

Tommy chuckled and Rosie froze. “Shit. Didn’t realize you were awake.” 

“Don’t worry.” Tommy croaked. “I won’t tell on another Irishman.” 

Rosie relaxed. “Thought you were from Birmingham, or is the chart wrong?” 

“My mother’s from County Clare.” 

“Ah, beautiful. I’m from Dublin but I’ve been on holiday.” She finished her cigarette in two quick inhales, and stubbed it out on her shoe. “Best of luck to you then, Mr. Shelby. I’ve got to finish my rounds. Keep this one out of trouble, eh?” 

The man in the bed next to him smirked. “Irish, hmm?” 

“Oh, fuck off. Here serving King and Country, aren’t I?” 

“Suppose so. Not that I much care. Unless the rumors are true and you can find a pot of gold big enough that I can fuck off to Switzerland and make cuckoo clocks.” 

“Not that I’m aware of. Where are you from then?” 

“Camden. Never thought I’d miss the smell of canal water but here we are then.” 

“I miss it too.” They fell into a silence, then, thoughts of things left behind taking up too much space in their chests to let any words squeak past. 

“Cards?” 

They played bridge for an hour before Solomons, who insisted on being called Alfie but would only address him by Tommy boy, sweetheart, or, after a particularly contentious round, blue-eyed Satan, demanded they switch to poker, which Alfie had to teach him. After he’d shuffled, he added to his litany of instructions, “You should smile more. Suits you.” 

Tommy looked up from his hand, expertly fanned out. His dad hadn’t been worth much, but at least he knew how to handle his cards. “And what’s there to smile about, eh?” 

Alfie spread his arms wide, but kept his cards facing the wall behind him. “Whiskey. This nice bed. Rosie’s tits. Those pretty fucking eyes.” 

Tommy scoffed. “It’s your move.” 

Later that night, of course, it all caught up to him. The front was nearly twenty miles away but he could swear he hear the sound of machine gun fire. Screams. Arthur, John, Danny, Jeremiah dead in his arms and him miles below the earth with pick-axes emerging from the dirt in front of him. He woke up gasping to Alfie’s hand reaching out. 

“Tom? C’mere.” Too tired, too scared to argue he did. 

“Get in the bed.” At his hesitation, Alfie grumbled. “Go on. Night shift just came through, no one will check on us for hours.”

He climbed in, gingerly avoiding Alfie’s leg. Strong arms wrapped around him. He hadn’t even known he was shaking. 

“‘S alright. Think about something else, something nice. You got a girl?” And then there was Greta who had breathed the same rattling breaths he was now and that was too much, too much to think about so he shook his head. 

“That’s fine. Pretty boy like you can have whoever he wants, yeah? You just lie here. Try to go back to sleep.”

“Can you talk” his throat had never been drier and he cleared it “talk to me?” 

“Well, no one’s ever encouraged that before. Usually it’s the other way around. Even when I was a baby, they’d tell me to shut up, but I never have. My poor mum hasn’t had a minute’s peace since I was born.”  
Tommy drifted, in and out, as the low rumble of Alfie’s voice carried him to Camden Town. Eventually, as the grey early morning dawned, he was awakened by a poke to the shoulder. 

“Back into your own bed, Tommy boy. You’ll ruin my image with Rosie.” Sleepily, he did as he was told, falling back into a mercifully dreamless sleep and prodded awake again by Rosie. 

“Breakfast, Mr. Shelby. Doctor’ll take a look at your chest again today.” 

He nodded blearily. The morning passed slow as honey, until mail was passed. There was an official looking envelope passed to him by a mousy volunteer. His heart thudded to a stop. 

He reached for his rosary, the one Polly had tucked into his hand before he boarded the train, but that was gone and it was just him in his pyjamas and an envelope he was afraid to open. He clasped his eyes shut, going through a prayer that started as an Our Father but quickly turned into please don’t let it be John, please don’t let it be Arthur, please don’t let it be Ada, please don’t let it be Polly. 

“You know it won’t change what’s written on it, right?” 

“Fuck off” Tommy managed from behind clenched teeth. 

“Well that’s not very fucking Christian. Do you want me to read it?” Tommy sighed, which turned into another coughing fit. 

“No. No, I have to.” With shaking hands, he ripped the flap, and quickly scanned it before tossing it to the table beside him, which Alfie snatched up. He roared with laughter. 

“Isn’t that just like the fucking army. Sorry you’re hospitalized, but come back quick so you can get shot at again. If I were you, I’d cut my bloody trigger finger off.” 

“They’d tell me to shoot with my thumb. Jesus. I nearly had a bloody heart attack.”  
Alfie’s face curled into a half smile. “Cards?” 

The doctor came, eventually, and told him he had pneumonia and he’d be there for a week at least and Tommy felt relief and then guilt, which at least was familiar to a good Catholic boy. Not that he’d ever been good. Alfie’s leg got manipulated back and forth and he had a whispered conversation with the doctor and Tommy fell back asleep, only to be awakened by Rosie’s boisterous laugh. He reached out for a cigarette and was rebuked but she told him her ma had sent some whiskey and she’d come back at the end of her shift to give him at least a little. 

“And only a little, hmm? You’re still sick.” He relaxed into that lilt, one that could have been his mother’s if you added some Romani. 

“You’ve never given me whiskey. I see how it is, this handsome fuck comes along and snatches you from me.”  
“I keep you in cigarettes, you gobshite.” 

Alfie made a face. “Fair fucking point.” Rosie stood, straightened Alfie’s bedsheet and ruffled his hair and gave Tommy a wink as she walked towards the operating bay. 

Maybe it was the whiskey that helped, the first drink he’d had in two weeks since the strafing had been non-stop, the first good drink he’d had in almost three years. Maybe it was the rain pattering against the window across from him. Either way, when his eyes snapped open again, it was already pitch black and his heart was racing and there was a weight on his shoulders. 

“Shhh, mate. It’s alright. You’re in Chantilly, not at the front.” Alfie loomed above him. “You were screaming.” 

“Fuck.” 

Alfie clambered in, wincing. 

“Your leg” mumbled Tommy “Rosie’ll kill me.” 

“Nah, she’s wrapped around my fucking finger, mate. Sides, once I broke my leg in a fight and I still walloped the cunt who did it.” 

“Getting shot’s different.” 

“Now who said I hadn’t been shot before, eh?” Tommy scoffed, but shifted enough so that Alfie could wrap an arm around him from behind. Tommy coughed once and then he couldn’t stop, not until Alfie had given him a glass of water and rubbed at his back. “Lie down, you paddy bastard before you cough up a lung.” 

It was weirdly nice, being spooned by a man, even though the stubble at his neck tickled. Something in Tommy’s chest unclenched. Alfie’s hand was running soothingly down his side, like with horses. He heard footsteps coming, and tensed. 

“Relax” Alfie whispered into the back of his neck “This orderly’s fucking useless, he’ll shine a flashlight down the room and leave.” And sure enough, there was a quick flash of light and the sound of footsteps retreating. Tommy settled back into him, and oh. That was an aspect of close quarters he hadn’t really considered. 

“Sorry, mate.” 

No, no, it’s alright, he wanted to say, but all of the air had left his chest so all there was left to do was to launch himself backwards towards him as best he could in the narrow bed. 

“Oh?” 

Tommy cleared his throat, but didn’t move. Alfie’s hand slid until it covered his protruding hip, fingers light along where his shirt had ridden up and his stomach was exposed. 

“Is this what you want, mate?” 

He swallowed, and nodded, rapidly. He could feel the predatory grin blooming on Alfie’s face, which was pressed against his neck. 

“Well then.” Fingers tracing some strange, unknowable pattern down into his waistband, then gripping him so hard he gasped into the pillow. It was over embarrassingly fast, Alfie reaching into his own pants at the same time, and Tommy was left with a coughing fit and a stain on his sheets. 

“You’re a pretty one, I won’t lie. Even in the dark.” A kiss scraped along his neck that was really more teeth than anything else, then a startling pop noise and a groan as Alfie moved into his own bed. Tommy was left staring at the dark expanse of the ceiling as Alfie began to snore, waiting for morning. 

After drifting off into a miraculously dreamless sleep, Tommy awoke, blinking in the midday sun. A tray of congealed porridge rested on his bedside. He turned to the bed beside him, preparing some joke about Rosie shirking her duties, but it was empty, corners crisp as though no one had ever been there. 

“He’s gone.” Tommy jumped at the unfamiliar voice, raspy from disuse. It was the soldier on the other side of Alfie, the one with shell shock. 

“What?”  
“This morning. He was discharged.” 

“Oh.” Tommy’s chest felt scraped out, hollow.

“I see things.” The soldier gave him a significant look. “Hear things. I’m sorry.” 

Tommy curled into his side. A rude way to end a conversation- Polly would have had a fit- but he didn’t want anyone to see him cry. 

He didn’t speak again until he left the hospital, back in the fucking trenches. Arthur clapped him on the back and John teased him about his vacation, while Jeremiah solemnly informed him he’d been praying for his recovery. Danny gave him a nervous smile and passed him a rude cartoon Will had drawn of the Kaiser. He taught them all poker. It wasn’t the same.


End file.
